A Conversation for War and Protest - the US in Vietnam (1969 - 1970)

Vietnam Series

Post 1

Researcher 220718

3.28.03, friday evening.

well, i guess i would like to know why the author(s) went to the trouble to put this scant teeny-weeny history of what could or could not be the war? i was there from early 1969 to early 1970 as a combat infantryman so i have some first hand sources. b4 i was hauled off i was studying se asia at university. so i have a trove of useful info on the war. this series on the war appears to be suffer from a number of errors, the worst being to replicate the cbs evening news. i don't get why you did this. can someone tell me at their convenience? thanks, R#220718 (i don't know why this is being called my 'nickname, it is my real name. jeez.).


Vietnam Series

Post 2

Deidzoeb

Hi R#220718,

The original author of this series "Constructively Banned" doesn't hang out around h2g2 much anymore as far as I know. I made some minor suggestions when he was still writing them, and he listed my name as a contributor. But my understanding was that he wrote them intending to focus on the protests, and only giving bits of info about the war as background to the protests. These entries are not meant to be a comprehensive history of the Vietnam War, which is why they were titled "War and Protest - the US in Vietnam."

Luckily, this guide has an easy way of balancing all shortcomings and differences of opinion, because anyone who disagrees or feels there's a topic not adequately covered can contribute his own entry. If you submitted a straightforward history of the Vietnam war, or just an account of what it was like to be there on a day-to-day basis, you'd have a good shot at getting it in the Edited Guide. Keep in mind that they have a hang-up about not accepting first-person accounts into the Edited Guide, but there are still a lot of informative, factual things you could write for it.

Still, if you'd prefer to write a first-hand account of your experience, we're starting a project called the Underguide, which will hopefully be able to draw attention to good entries that can't fit into the Edited Guide. For now you could check out this page A957404 for more info, but hopefully you can catch up with us later on the front page if you want to submit something.

Now down to the nitty gritty of your comments. Could you explain what you mean when you said that the War and Protest entries "replicated" the cbs evening news? And what other errors did you see?

"i don't get why you did this. can someone tell me at their convenience?"

I assume the author "Constructively Banned" wanted to write about the history of protests. Maybe it's not clear enough in the entries that they are meant to focus on the protests. It's like if a person wrote an article about the history of conscientious objectors from World War II and gave a little background about WWII in the process. It would not be a valid complaint to say that the article was bad because it didn't cover everything that happened in WWII.


Key: Complain about this post

More Conversations for War and Protest - the US in Vietnam (1969 - 1970)

Write an Entry

"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a wholly remarkable book. It has been compiled and recompiled many times and under many different editorships. It contains contributions from countless numbers of travellers and researchers."

Write an entry
Read more